Dicker: U.S. Energy Independence Is Nigh

Written by: Daniel Dicker05/14/13 - 4:21 PM EDT

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- The midyear report of the International Energy Agency has been released in London and it tells a story we already knew -- North American oil supplies continue to grow, decreasing the need for the United States to import as much oil from the Middle East and elsewhere.

But the IEA goes further in its predictions, calling for a "supply shock" that will change the politics of oil across the globe, infecting not only the chain of supply for oil, but also the chain of production for refined products like gasoline, heating oil and jet fuel.

While none of these trends has needed the imprimatur of the IEA to see, there is considerable added weight to the idea and inevitability of U.S. energy independence -- and the future of increasing U.S. energy exporting, both in refined products and in liquid natural gas.

This is a fascinating trend, considering that most industry analysts, no less than 10 years ago, were convinced of peak oil theory, an inevitable downslope of fossil-fuel energy production that most profiles claimed we were already past. However, tight oil plays from shale, oil sands from Canada and deep-water production from the Gulf of Mexico has denied the peak oil predictions, at least for the next several decades -- if not centuries.